Having both suffered contrasting but equally as crushing defeats last week, how will the Dragons and Titans respond as the end of the regular season begins to draw to a dramatic close?

While the Titans have already started planning their end-of-season getaway, the Dragons are battling for September survival, and after looking like finals certainties just a couple of months ago, they are not fighting for a spot in the eight with just four games to go in 2017.

After such a brilliant start the Dragons have been extremely disappointing since the Origin period, barely winning matches and slipping from the top four to ninth.

With the chance to cement finals footy over the last fortnight, the Dragons have surrounded meekly, going down to the Raiders and then blowing a 10-point lead with just 10 minutes to go during last week’s loss to the Rabbitohs at the SCG.

It’s simply not good enough for a team that harbours ambitions of playing finals football, but thankfully for the Dragons, they are coming up against a side this week who have just suffered the heaviest defeat of any club in the competition this season.

Gold Coast, after keeping Brisbane at bay for the first 23 minutes of last week’s showdown, conceded almost a point a minute in receiving a 54-0 beatdown in front of their own fans.

With wins over both of last year’s grand finalists Melbourne and Cronulla this season, the Titans haven’t been able to conjure up consistent performances in 2017 – and as last week so perfectly illustrated, there’s way too big of a gap between their best and worst displays, which just isn’t good enough to feature in September.

Gold Coast’s season has been over for a while now, but they can still prove a thorn in the side of teams looking to wrap up top four and top eight finishes – starting with the Dragons this week.

And the Titans have a solid recent record against the Dragons, winning three of their last four meetings – including a 20-10 win back in Round 17. But surely, with their season on the line, the Dragons – in front of their own fans – will find a way to beat a team that conceded 54 points seven days ago.

Hame Sele and Blake Lawrie join the Dragons’ bench in place of Jacob Host and Jake Marketo, while Kevin Proctor comes back into the Titans side at the expense of Agnatius Paasi.